Retirees in demand as employers continue to face tight labour market

Andrew McPherson retired a few years ago, after being injured from decades of working as a fitter and turner.

But seeing his parents struggle financially gave him second thoughts.

"They ran out of money in their late 70s," he said.

"They had to remortgage their property, which I didn't know about, and they just ran out of money, and it looked like they had no place to go, they were going to sell the house."

It's a situation he doesn't want to end up in.

"I'm not working for today, I'm working for when I'm in my 70s and 80s and the later stages of my life, so that I'm financially secure," he added.

"I had to change what I actually did to be able to suit my physicality, because I've got a few injuries and so forth," he explained.

"So I went into workplace training, high-risk workplace training."

Record numbers of older workers

Andrew is among a growing cohort of retirees going back to work.

ABS figures show around 45,000 more people aged 65 and older are working than the same time a year ago.

The proportion of older people in the workforce is near record highs.

Which is not surprising given the pension age is now 67 and unemployment across the economy is holding near five-decade lows at 3.5 per cent.

Employers added nearly 33,000 staff to their payrolls last month, with even record levels of immigration struggling to keep up with the demand for workers.

Hours worked rose even more strongly than the number of jobs, meaning those already employed are working longer.

"That's often what you see when the labour market is really tight," observed ANZ's head of Australian economics Adam Boyton.

"What I think we'll see over the next six months is hours worked will soften quite a bit, as the slowing in the economy starts to get reflected in these labour market data."

In the meantime, employers are turning to whatever source they can to find the skilled employees they need.

Professional services recruitment firm Robert Half surveyed hundreds of businesses and found that 58 per cent had hired a retiree during the past year.

"Immigration has been down through the COVID pandemic [and] still hasn't yet got back to the levels that it was pre pandemic," said Robert Half director Andrew Brushfield.

"And so those newly retired experts have really been able to fill the void."

Despite economists, including the Reserve Bank, expecting the labour market to soften as the economy slows, Mr Brushfield believes the skills and experience many older workers can bring will remain in demand.

"I'd be surprised if it didn't continue," he told The Business.

"Where the workforce is at the moment and the skill shortage, we're looking at record [low] unemployment.

"Even though that's changing slightly as the months go by, it's not changing significantly."

'Commercial acumen, technical skills'

Andrew McPherson's boss, Diogo Oliveira, who owns Star Training and Assessing, is glad Mr McPherson stepped out of retirement.

"The trainer needs to know what they're training about and that usually comes with experience," he observed.

"Andrew, with many, many years of experience in this field, is perfect for our industry. So age is no barrier when it came to bringing him on board."

Mr Oliveira said that he is not only hiring older workers himself, but many more of his students are from older age groups.

"Definitely the older generation, we're seeing more and more still doing courses with us and returning to do courses with us," he added.

Mr Brushfield advises employers not to disregard older candidates when looking for new hires.

"We're finding that newly retired people can bring a combination of commercial acumen, technical skills, and ability to pick things up and specifics of jobs up very quickly," he said.

"Not all the newly retired people are looking for full time employment, so some employers out there need to show some flexibility, which is a constant in the market that we're operating right now.

"So it might be two, three, four days a week, rather than five. It might be slightly modified hours."

But, until the labour market does weaken substantially, many employers are happy to make those trade-offs to get a skilled body through the door.

Story by Rachel Pupazzoni and Michael Janda

Original story link https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-21/retirees-in-demand-as-employers-face-tight-labour-market/102626676